I have recently sold my home and I am moving back to my home state. My elderly parents are 87 and 90 and live at home with a caregiver that comes for 3 hours, three times a week. I arranged the caregiver during a health crisis earlier this year. She does light housekeeping and meal prep and laundry and can run errands if needed. She has been fantastic and has reduced my worry and stress. I have arranged lawn care so that is taken care of. My parents have funds to pay for these things and they are paying for them. My mother still drives and picks up food and groceries. Both of them are independent with their self care and manage their own finances. I am an only child. However, I know this can't last forever and I find myself worrying more about what is to come. I have asked and pushed a conversation but neither gives any real answers. I think they think I will just handle it, when the time comes, like always. My parents have a difficult marriage and mother has complained since my childhood of how miserable she is. I was parentified and my emotional needs were not met or attuned to. My mother has no friends and has cut off from most relatives save a couple who she manipulates. She cajoles some neighbors but I would not call them friends. She was not interested in mothering and had a full time job 25 miles from home since I was 1 year old. I had a series of babysitters, family, neighbors, tenders, and paid caregivers. People who meet her say she is Great and so charming but that is the public face. My mother has been emotionally abusive to me and physically when I was a child. She interfered with my love relationships and gave silent treatments that could last for months and was very critical. She raged when I was a child and it was scary. My father is just emotionally shut down and probably has always been. He enables her and has made hurtful comments and has very limited empathy. They both had difficult childhoods. I have done therapy and self healing work and have learned a lot about covert narcissism and borderline behavior and the enabling relationships like my parents. I understand they will not change. My Grief work is ongoing. I call or text them once a week and have reduced my visits to 3-4 times per year unless an emergency. I no longer want the stress of waiting for the next phone call or wondering what will happen when she can't drive anymore or when I will get the next call from the ER and have to rush to the airport and get on a plane and put my life on hold. I want to be close enough so I am within driving distance from them but I certainly dont want to live with them. For my own convenience, it would be nice to be in their same town but it is smaller and about 25 miles from a large city. I would prefer a larger city but that is 3 hours from them and I dont want to go through all the hassle of moving only to find I am still caught up every Sunday, talking on the phone, and wishing I could just stop by for an hour, say Hello and then leave. I am considering buying a place in their town because it would be the most convenient for me (and them) and give me the most control over decisions that will come down the road but its not really where I want to live. I am 55 years. Has anyone faced a similar decision and what did you discover? Better to live really close for your own convenience with them even if its not really where you want to be and make the best of it? Or live where you would like, a 3 hour drive away, try to enjoy it and worry about the future when it happens? Did living close undo all the self healing work and create new trauma? I have been looking at homes and rentals in 3 different cities for months but I can't seem to make a decision and I think this dilemma is at the root of my indecision.
Are you concerned at all at the state of their house? It took my husband and I 6 months to clear out a 1 bedroom apartment of my mother's. It was beyond exhausting. Do you feel this will one day be your responsibility and is there anything to gain from it?
I agree with others to put yourself first. If your parents are still difficult to you then you are punishing yourself to be around them. If you want to still at least move to where you might be happiest. They chose the behavior in raising you. People generally are advised to cut off contact from an abusive situation. I hope you find the right choice to give you some happiness.
I certainly understand when people do not want to become caregivers to their parents especially abusive ones, so no judgments here on that score.
It's important to be honest about it to your parents though and make them understand that you will not be available. Move to the larger city that is further away if it's what you want.
If you do move closer and they lose independence, being available only for 'emergencies' will not be emergencies. Being out of ice cream will be an emergency. Boredom becomes an emergency. A fabricated health crisis when you have plans made in advance that you're excited about becomes an emergency.
They won't have a serious talk with you about any future plans or living arrangements because they probably think that you'll take care of them if the time comes when they can't anymore.
Make them have a talk with you. Don't back down. If you don't want to be their caregiver, you have to make them listen.
Once my mom needed Assisted Living, and now Memory Care, I moved her to a facility near me,because you don't want to be responding to issues like the inevitable falls or illnesses or hospitalizations that will occur from that distance. You can hire a geriatric care manager, but its always going to be more stressful from a distance.
My suggestion is to choose your city life, and make periodic trips down to monitor the situation. You can always stay in a hotel, not with them if you need to stay overnight.
Move them to your city when they need more care. There are probably more options for that in a bigger city, than they have in their small town anyway.
I was 43 when my father passed, 4 years after the move. My mother didn't drive so became the "surrogate husband", taking her on errands and to doctors' appointments. After 6 years I decided to relocate to another state. We bought a house in a suburb of the city and moved her to a 55+ community 25 miles away where everything was shiny and new. I felt that offered enough distance as I was in the midst of my career but could still see her once a week. I hired someone to take her on errands and occasionally she went with friends in her community. She never asked to visit our house because she knew it was a drive. (She did live with us for a couple of weeks when we moved and that was enough.) Yes, she is difficult like your mother. Co-dependent, has OCD and frequent depression.
Now that she is in hospice in assisted living 50 miles isn't too much to drive to visit her a few times per week. Everyone has there has own circumstances but I've found that a 45-minute drive works out well.
S/he the sits down with your parents and makes a professional (and often impressive) presentation about what your parents need.
Some elders buy in to this presentation and realize that it isnt just "the kid" who is telling them this stuff.
Others are far more stubborn.
https://www.lovepanky.com/my-life/relationships/signs-of-covert-narcissism
#23 They will make you look bad to make themselves feel and look better. Working behind the scenes, a covert narcissist will often talk badly about the person they are closest to. Having to paint themselves as the martyr, the only way they can make themselves look good is by making everyone else look bad. That makes them the victor.
I think you are concerned if your parents were closer your contact with them would open old wounds. My parents were not neglectful during my childhood but my father was neglected as a child and when he developed vascular dementia his personality changed and he became very verbally abusive. It was hard to take hearing someone who you love saying such hateful things. I decided I could not handle Dad's daily hands-on care and I placed him in an MC where I visited at least weekly and made sure he had everything he needed and a lot of the stuff he just wanted. It worked well for both of us.
You need to take care of yourself. Be honest with yourself on what you can endure, because this is going to be a difficult path regardless. Make the choice you believe you need to protect yourself. If that means taking care from a little more distance, you can make that work. If you decide to rent or purchase in your small town to test the waters, be ready to declare it isn't working and relocate to the larger town. Or relocate to the small town from the larger one. It doesn't have to be a permanent decision now, although I understand why you would like it to be. Since it is a small town, maybe you could purchase a small weekend get-away cabin on a scenic spot you like and enjoy it while you take an hour to visit the parents?
If anyone should be doing the moving, it's them.
Are their legal papers in order: POA for health care and finances? Are they aware of the fact that you have no intention of becoming their caregiver? Assumptions can be dangerous things.
I helped them move, unpacked them, all of it, and got them set up with doctors and everything so they could live in the new place. I visited once a week, picked up their RXs at the store, did pretty much everything for them with mom complaining (as usual) the entire time. Then dad fell one night & broke his hip in July of 2014; all hell broke loose; he had to go to Assisted Living now and mom was making a federal case b/c she didn't want to go. Long story short, I had to find an AL that would take him, move dad in after rehab, then liquidate their apartment, and move my screeching mother in with dad to a small AL unit. Horrible. He died 10 months later in June of 2015 and by then, I knew mom was on the dementia highway.
Fast forward to now: she lives in Memory Care Assisted Living 4 miles down the road from me, is just under 95, and the only thing worse than a covert narcissistic mother is one with advanced dementia who's fallen 80x, been in and out of the hospital and ERs for the past 10 years, rehabs, specialists offices, doctors, neurologists, you name it, she's been there with me taking her b/c I am all she's got. And I'm the POA for both medical and financial. They signed their $$$ over to me in 2014 when dad broke his hip and I've been managing their lives ever since. As an only child, what's the alternative? When the $$$ runs out soon, I will apply for Medicaid on her behalf and off she goes to a Skilled Nursing Facility with a roommate, God help me.
I pretty much speak to her daily on the phone, or more if she's super confused and blowing it up. I visit once a week and it's normally not a fun visit. Again, this has been going on since 2011 and even though I don't do 'hands on care' I'm burned out to a crisp. If I had it to do all over again, what would I change? Nothing I guess. I set pretty strong boundaries about what I'll do/not do, when I'll visit, etc. It's still awful b/c my mother has the personality of a snake and I have a lot of resentment. But again, I'm all she's got. I have to be her advocate or there will be nobody else to do it. And while I may not 'deserve' it, it's my cross to bear, that's how I look at it.
My DH now knows why I cried in 2011, and why I still cry, except now, I think he silently cries WITH me, to be honest. Walking this path is the hardest thing I've ever done in my 64 years of life. Bar none.
In your case, move close enough so you won't have to drive for hours to be there when the crises hit, and hit they will. Their house will have to be sold (probably) at some point to finance their care in AL or whatever; these are things to think about. And what boundaries YOU will set down and enforce for your mental and emotional wellbeing. Otherwise, you'd have to make them a ward of the state and IDK how you'd feel about doing such a thing.
My stomach hurts for you, as it always does for myself. Wishing you the best of luck and Godspeed as you enter this phase of your life. I pray that you will take care of YOURSELF while embroiled in their lives. You matter too.
Your next talk with Mom and Dad should not be what do u have planned but that they should be planning for their future because they should not plan on you physically caring for them. They should get a POA and you can be that but POA does not mean ur at their beck and call or you are legally bound to care for them physically or financially. Its a tool, a tool you can use when they are no longer competent to pay bills and make decisions where they should be placed. You have to make it clear, you will not be caring for them or living with them.
If you want to live in the city, live in the city. You go where you will be happy. Mom made sure she did what she wanted raising you, you have a right to do what you want.
"Hands on caregiving" doesn't only mean what you think it means!
You don't have to be in the same town as your parents. While of course being across the continent isn't ideal, if they have adequate care, certainly a few hours away should be enough. It sounds like you are accepting that you are going to be their services manager because your mother expects it? And I'm betting she will also expect you to be on-site as they need more and more care, unless they have the finances to hire fulltime (24/7/365) care.
As long as they are competent to make their own decisions, do not let your mother bully you into doing everything for them as their needs increase. Considering the emotional and physical abuse in the past from your mother, please know that you do not owe them anything. This just sounds like a precarious situation for you in that you are already imagining you have no other choice than to become involved in their lives every single day. And you don't want that. You don't need that. You deserve better!